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That's the MacBook Air/MacBook effect: every time a co-worker brought one/brings one along, I get jealous. However, I recently started using a Mac Pro as my main machine (first a 2012 12-core, now a 2013 8-core), and the difference to a 2-core MacBook Pro is huge. When I peg two cores (e. g. by compiling a latex document which is a single-core task and use other things that occupy another cpu (such as play Youtube videos in Chrome)), on a 2-core machine, logically, the UI and everything else would feel like molasses. On the Mac Pros, some of the other unoccupied cores take over. This is literally the first desktop I am using (as my own computer) since 1998 when I got my first PowerBook. And now I'm ruined. (All of this is obvious, but I didn't think it'd make as much of a difference in practice as it does.)

But regarding the question of storage, I think ideally (and completely counter to Apple's current philosophy), they should have added a drive bay door and a way to upgrade the SSD. Making a Fusion Drive standard would have been a step in the right direction, but as someone who has run a Fusion Drive on my 15" MacBook Pro, if you start pushing it hard, all you get is the performance of a hard drive. A more flexible solution would have been better for customers, such as allowing user to upgrade the SSD and offer a drive bay for a spinning platter hard drive. Now I know that this wouldn't have happened in today's Apple, but it would have solved a lot of problems.

OK, I update to HS. I discovered the free Final Cut X (10.1.4) I got from my brother's mega purchase from Amazon is unusable. It looks like I will need to save my pennies and buy the latest version from the app store.

Reliable? You'd have to show some stats to back that up. Neater? Eh. Apple is cutting so many corners to make things thinner, they're not going to save space for a HDD bay that the vast majority of its users won't use.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

I don't have any stats, but it seems obvious: you don't have to deal with potentially failing power bricks and enclosures for external hard drives or lose cables. Would you disagree with that?

If it still had external power bricks, sure, but few modern drives do - certainly all 2.5" drives are buspowered and have been for years.

I don't think I've ever seen an external enclosure fail that wasn't related to the power supply in... ever? I know some people managed to get FW 400 ports in the wrong way with lots of force, but even that was decades ago.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

Security Dialogs in HS. ie - when you click a padlock icon, or if the OS asks you for permission by itself. They come with the current username filled in, and a blank password field.

Even since upgrading to HS, cursor focus does not shift to the security dialog. In particular, focus doesn't shift to the password field. I always have to click over. This has held true for each point release, and for alt user accounts. Has anyone else noticed this?